Black and grey realism tattoo of seven moon phases in a vertical line on the upper arm of a woman wearing a white vest top.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Moon phases down the upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A vertical column of seven moon phases runs down the upper arm, from a thin crescent at the top through to a full moon in the middle and a waning crescent at the bottom. The craters and surface texture of the moons are shaded with soft grey gradients and fine dark outlines. The tattoo is shown in black ink on pale skin against a plain light wall, with the wearer's hand resting at the elbow.

Realism Upper arm Moon Moon phase Crescent moon Full moon

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mr Oakes never set a dance by the clock. He set it by the moon, and he had it printed on the bills outside the Palais: the band plays until the moon clears the end of the pier. On the first Saturday of that summer the moon was a sliver no wider than a fingernail, low over the water, and we played the slow numbers to a near-empty floor while the sailors looked for their nerve.

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Lorraine had the nerve for everyone. She was the one who took the sailors by the wrist and turned them round the boards, and the one who chalked the week's moon on the back door of the ballroom before we went on. Each Saturday the sliver grew a little fatter, and each Saturday she drew it, a thin pale curve beside the last, so that by the middle of July there was a column of them climbing the brick like a ladder nobody had asked to climb.

On the night the moon was round and yellow over the pier, Lorraine went out during the interval and didn't come back for the last waltz. Her coat was still on the hook. Mr Oakes said she'd gone on the late bus to her aunt's in Ramsgate, and I believed him for a week, until a postcard came with a picture of a lighthouse and nothing written on the back.

I drew the waning crescent myself the next Saturday, under the full one, a curve bitten from the other side. Then, because Mr Oakes said the moon always comes back round, I drew a new sliver at the top of the column, thin as a hair, and played the slow numbers to the empty floor until the moon cleared the pier.